Exciting new updates to iOS and MacOS

Since the new Apple announcement, our office and Microsoft Teams chat has been abuzz with excitement for some of the newest features we can expect in the upcoming versions of Apple products.

The update introduced what to expect with the new Apple iOS 15 and the new macOS Monterey. Our Apple pro digital services team especially were excited to learn some of these updates, and David Carr has even demoed live text.

Live text will improve productivity

iOS 15 comes with Live Text, which improves your photo scanning capabilities. Thanks to machine learning, when you take a photo that contains a phone number or URL. Additionaly, any text can be selected from the image, URLs and phone numbers are even clickable directly from the image!

Text from the photos can be copied and pasted. A great use case for this is handwritten meeting notes on the wallboard. In practice, simply take a photo and then copy and paste the generated text into your notes app of choice; super handy!

For a better understanding of how this works, watch David's video demo of Live Text in action.

Please note some new features are avaialble only to those users who have installed the beta software to their devices and may not yet be avaialble in your region.

Safari making life easier with tab groupings

Now added is a new feature for better tab management called Tab Groups. With this feature, you can add multiple tab groups, each containing its own tabs, which allows for practical context switching. So if you're travelling, you can have a travel group with tabs related to your train, itinerary and hotel information and a work tab to keep track of what's important during your workday.

The ability to group tabs in this way feels intuitive and will help you focus on what's important. You can easily switch groups by selecting from the group dropdown.

Alternatively, make the switch by opening the sidebar and selecting a group from the sidebar.

You can also change your groups' sort order and can see all tabs in a grid layout.

The grouped tabs are synced across to both iPad and iPhone, keeping you organised on the go.

David Carr made the following comment

With macOS Monterey (Version 12) comes to an updated Safari browser that's had a lot of attention; its updated design slimlines the toolbars, pinned tabs now show the favicon, to the left and the address bar centrally aligned.

Keep your internet private

Another great feature with the newly announced iCloud plus is improved Hide My Emails to create disposable email accounts, including private relay, to use a private VPN for hiding a user's IP address.

Turn on Private Relay to hide your IP address and Safari browsing activity from network providers and websites so that no one - including Apple - can see who you are or what sites you're visiting.

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